Angelslayer: The Winnowing War-K. Michael Wright

Angelslayer: The Winnowing War
K. Michael Wright
Medallion, Sep 2008, $25.95
ISBN: 9781933836539

Although it was forbidden; when the angels looked upon the humans with curiosity and lust, they mated with them. This damned those who did the forbidden by the Creator Elyon; he made their progeny giants (Nephilim) did. Desperate for forgiveness, they send Enoch to plead with the Creator for a second chance; he returns to tell them their children will be cursed with a thirst for human blood and flesh and that this generation of Nephilim will be the last one. The Nephilim generate over the generations, but the goodness is the part that vanishes. Now they only survive by eating purebred humans’ flesh and blood.

The Nephilim fleet ventures forth From Etlantis, the city created by the Son of the Morning to take control of what is left of a devastated world; depleted over the centuries by their evil. However the pirate chief Darke and his men make it their mission to raid the invading fleet, but now they are visiting Satariel, the Fallen angel, who offers an exchange of prisoners. The angel will free the pirate’s son, long thought dead, in trade for a Datahoon Loch, who like all his people, is the descendant of Uriel the archangel. Darke completes his part of the mission, but not before Lach plants his seed in Adrea. Their child will be humanity’s last hope after Darke delivers Loch to the angel.

This wondrous fantasy is based on two biblical verses in which the Fallen Angels and their offspring walk the earth, but with the spin that they no longer accept living in harmony with humans as the first generation of Nephilim did. The only reason mankind lives is because they are a food supply, which makes for an intriguing look at the “origin” of the vampire mythos. The protagonists work hard to stay alive and free in a world in which the Creator seems to have deserted all his children, but has given them a distant light of hope. L. Michael Wright has the right stuff as he provides a mesmerizing thriller.

Harriet Klausner